http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1008596975996
Sharansky slams BBC report on boy bomber
Hilary Leila Krieger
The BBC employs a "gross double standard to the Jewish state" that smacks of anti-Semitism, Minister-without-Portfolio Natan Sharansky charged in a letter he sent to the British news service Tuesday morning. He was reacting to its coverage of the IDF's arrest of a 16-year-old would-be suicide bomber last week.
In comparison to other international news organizations, which focused on the use of children by Palestinian terrorist groups, the BBC portrayed the event as "Israel's cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes," he wrote.
Sharansky said such an approach "reveals a deep-seated bias against Israel. Only a total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups would drive a reporter to paint Israel in such an unflattering light instead of placing the focus on the bomber and the organization that recruited him."
The report, he said, "has not only set a new standard for biased journalism, it has also raised concerns that it was tainted by anti-Semitism."
Sharansky questioned whether the BBC had ever run stories about Palestinian use of children for propaganda purposes or the media spin utilized by Palestinian leaders, actions which are "not a matter of dispute to any serious journalist."
And yet, he continued, BBC correspondent Orla Guerin "did not feel it inappropriate to use an attempted suicide attack by a child to point cynically to Israel's attempt to manipulate the media. By applying such a gross double standard to the Jewish state, it is difficult to see Ms. Guerin's report as anything but anti-Semitic." Sharansky said historically, using "a different yardstick" to judge Jewish behavior and that of other groups has been a clear sign of anti-Semitism.
The BBC press office declined to answer several questions from The Jerusalem Post concerning the incident, saying only, "We have received the letter and are looking into it."
In his letter, Sharansky quoted Guerin as describing to viewers how the IDF "paraded the child in front of the international media," then "produced" the child for reporters, "posed" him a second time for the cameras, and then "rushed him back into a jeep." He continued that she reported that the entire event was under "Israeli army control," which meant that "we were not allowed to get his [the child's] version of events."
Such language, Sharansky said, casts doubt on what has happened. The report ends with her saying, "This is a picture that Israel wants the world to see."
Last Wednesday, paratroopers at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus discovered Husam Abdu, 16, who apparently suffers from mental deficiencies, wearing an explosives belt. He had reportedly received NIS 100 from a terrorist group to run toward soldiers and blow himself up. After noticing the explosives, the soldiers used a robot to bring a scissors to Abdu for him to remove the explosives belt.
A Sharansky aide said that as of Tuesday night, the minister had received no response from BBC World Editor Jonathan Baker, to whom the letter was addressed, or anyone else from the company. Sharansky's missive is only the latest in a string of tense encounters between the BBC and the government. For a time last year, Israeli officials refused to cooperate with the news organization or grant it interviews. This and other incidents encouraged the BBC this November to appoint Malcolm Balen, a former news editor, to monitor the its Middle East coverage.
--------------------------
Interesting reading. I see that type of bias as more anti-Western than anti-Semitic, however.
Threaded Mode
